PS4 Will be Sold at a Loss, But Paid Subscriptions Might Push it Into the Black

We usually expect games hardware to be sold at a loss for the first year or so, as hardware makers subsidise the consoles to get them out to the people on the (relatively) cheap. And PS4's no different, although Sony hopes to reclaim its losses as soon as owners buy a game or sign up to play online.

Speaking to Eurogamer, Sony Japan's Masayasu Ito claimed that's about all it'll take to turn PS4 profitable, a stark turnaround from the disastrous PS3 launch that saw the machine racking up losses for the first couple of years.

If Ito's numbers are right, it means that selling a PS4, a game or two and signing a user up to its PlayStation Plus subscription service will actually make money for the hardware maker -- making the decision to base PS4 around an affordable PC-like core seem like a business master-stroke. [Eurogamer via VG247]